Created by Aaron Tanner, a graphic designer, musician, and underground music archivist from Evansville, Indiana, USA, Cardiacs: A Big Book and a Band and the Whole World Window is described by publisher Melodic Virtue as, “a limited edition coffee table book covering everything from their beginnings as Cardiac Arrest up to their final album, Guns”.
But it’s so much more than a coffee table book. It does meet some of the criteria of one – it’s weighty (apparently – I reviewed a pdf, there was no way I was printing 292 pages, just to see how heavy it was), expensive (£75 for the standard edition, £200 for the deluxe model) and printed on quality paper – a feature confirmed to be true by Kavus Torabi, previous Cardiacs member and royal prince of prog, who posted his appreciation of his copy on the Metabook of Faces:
“Wonderful testimonials from a host of sterling freaks and printed on superior paper stock, this is an incredible book. Take a bow all involved.” Kavus Torabi, Facebook, Dec-24
So this is indeed a heavy, expensive, and quality book, but the coffee table variety should also be “casually read”. Not designed to be “read” in the way we generally read books – starting at the beginning, finishing at the end – a coffee table book lies in wait on your living room table, all allure and quiet pretention. A stealthy yet very visible way for people to broadcast their interests when hosting cheese and wine parties, the coffee table book suggestively invites you, the party-goer, to take a naughty peek under its covers, while you impatiently wait for your host to bring the cheesy comestibles and fine wines.
But this is no ordinary coffee table book. Its ingredients are standard, yes –beautifully created & displayed photos, images and graphics, text as supporting character, short, data-laden descriptions, and the like. But the quality of those ingredients is by no means Asda level – we are definitely looking at M&S food level quality.
Cardiacs: A Big Book and a Band and the Whole World Window, contains in its glossy pages, some truly glorious outpourings of love, inspiration, astonishment and connection. It has the same shape of love as the r/Cardiacs Reddit group, but with outpourings pouring out of the mouths of famous types you may have heard of, rather than the fans you probably haven’t.
Prior to the release of Cardiacs: A Big Book and a Band and the Whole World Window, one of the very few books about the Cardiacs, is Aylesbury Bolton Wolverhampton Hove: A Little Man and 101 Cardiacs Gigs, by Adrian Bell. Adrian is a notable Pondie, described by Laura Holmes, promoter of Cardiacs influenced music nights in Sheffield, under the moniker Buds & Spawn, as “…the Cardiacs fan’s Cardiacs fan”.
Adrian’s book describes his epic & entertaining hitch-hiking adventures, en route to, and in attendance at, 101 Cardiacs gigs. In an interview ahead of his recent DJ appearance for Buds & Spawn, he insightfully reflected on the nature of his and Aaron Tanner’s books:
“It’s like comparing Prog magazine to The Organ. My book, as well as featuring my little on-the-road tales, also every other chapter is about a fan and their journey into Cardiacs, but none of them are celebrities. Whereas this new one is testimonies from Mike Patton and Shane Embury and so it’s relevant, and I’m really interested, but it’s different,”
Where the stories in Adrian’s 101 gigs focus on the fans rather than the famous, Cardiacs: A Big Book and a Band and the Whole World Window is awash with memories, reflections and insights from an array of celebrity music types from the UK, US – and Finland. According to Jussi Lehtisalo of Circle’s entry in the book, he frequently “forced” everyone to watch his Cardiacs VHS of All That Glitters Is a Maresnest at get-togethers & parties at his home in Pori, in the 90s: “There are not too many people in Pori, a town on the west coast of Finland, but there are probably more Cardiacs fans per capita than anywhere else in the world.”.
What I found particularly, and unexpectedly, engaging about Cardiacs: A Big Book and a Band and the Whole World Window was that the accounts of Cardiacs-fuelled experiences contain the same themes that crop up in the fan accounts in Adrian’s book, and on the Reddit group. Wonder, astonishment and admiration for Tim Smith’s abilities as a composer are frequent and impassioned; descriptions of Cardiacs music as a religious or spiritual experience are commonplace and tales of epiphanies and revelation abound.
There are many references to the deep sense of certainty that, in finding Cardiacs music, you have finally found what you are looking for (unlike for poor Bono, who despite his late middle age, I suspect is still looking). This realisation that you are in the right place, that you’ve reached the pot of (musical) gold, is a cord that binds actual and aspiring Pondies together – a shared, emotional, even spiritual response to this music that seemingly without effort and without fuss, spans genres. It’s a thread that can clearly be seen, running through the many accounts in Cardiacs: A Big Book and a Band and the Whole World Window.
Then there’s the unquantifiable essence of Cardiacs music, that moves and inspires and fascinates, but is fundamentally unexplainable using something as reductive, as crude, as words. Even the bands artwork and costumes were chosen based on an intuitive “feeling” about what is right, an artistic decision, rather than commercially motivated choices, made as part of some data-driven marketing strategy.
Quotes from the book by erstwhile Cardiacs band members demonstrate this shared, indefinable sense of making art from the heart:
“At first by discussion and negotiation, but later by some unnameable process, we would all just buy into an idea and run with it. Tim’s success as a composer was in great part due to this trust, and you could trust him completely.” Mark Cawthra (Redbus Noface, formally Cardiacs)
“There was never a plan for the designs; everything was instinctive. As long as it gave you that “feeling” it was “right.” Sarah Jones (formerly Smith, formally saxophonist with Cardiacs)
“Hearing Cardiacs for the first time in 1987 was like doing a dot to-dot without the numbers. I was feeling around and the picture made sense, but I didn’t know why.” Sharon Fortnum, Kugelschreiber, formally Cardiacs)
And then there are the pictures – there are loads and loads and loads of pictures…
Melodic Virtue had “unprecedented access to Tim Smith’s personal archive” to create the book, but clearly Aaron Tanner put in some considerable leg work to find previously unseen-by-the-wider-public photographs and other Cardiacs-based material. Previous band members, friends and fans have offered up their personal photographic records of gigs, merch, all manner of Cardiacs-related documents and doings. Thoughtfully curated by Cardiacs-eras, it’s a joy to view the often intimate moments from the band’s past.
My only book- related “meh” is that I want to know who is in the photos, when they were taken, and where. This kind of info is included, sometimes, seemingly on an ad hoc basis, and maybe only present when the information was available – I imagine (and I might be wrong) that Tim Smith’s archive wasn’t Dewey Decimal System level tagged and bagged…but other than the lack of image data and detail, it’s an object of gorgeousness. Aaron Tanner has form though – his books on the Butthole Suffers, The Residents and Ministry are similarly impressive works and must-haves for uber-fans.
But no band has fans like Cardiacs fans, as Tim Smith acknowledged in 2005 (which was, incidentally, the same year that the music video for “Tarred and Feathered” was broadcast on Channel 4’s The Tube and a 25 year-old me first heard music by a band I would still adore and admire 20 years later).
“Cardiacs is our life and everything we do, and everything we have ever done. We play a kind of music that we are very very proud of and love more than life. A kind of music that apparently makes people hate us with a terrifying vengeance, or love us so dearly and passionately that it becomes a worry. No in-betweens. But to us it’s just tunes. Lovely tunes.” – Tim Smith, 2005 – We Are Cult
Sadly Cardiacs never “broke” America. As publisher Melodic Virtue are US based, Cardiacs: A Big Book and a Band and the Whole World Window could, with a fair wind, increase the visibility of Cardiacs across the (actual) pond. Which could be a boon for current band members and by extension, the entire Cardiacs Family of bands. But if people are looking for a band biog, this book is not it, nor is it “merch”. It is, however, a visually appealing Cardiacs legacy document. As uber-fan and all round excellent human Marina (of the aforementioned Organ zine) noted, “Buying it feels less like ownership than guardianship”. You can read the Organ review of the book here.
So with only 27 copies of the standard edition remaining as I write this (no idea how many £200 deluxe versions are left but they come with all sorts of groovy extras), I’m hoping that this review might generate a wee bit more buzz for Cardiacs: A Big Book and a Band and the Whole World Window, so that it gets itself another run, because there are dejected, bookless Pondies out there who have birthdays pending and really, really want a copy, and even more potential Pondies who need to know all about this most fabulous, innovative, passionate, bonkers, wonky, irregular, creative and incredibly influential band.
‘Cardiacs: A Big Book and a Band and the Whole World Window’ is out now – you can buy it from the Melodic Virtue store here. And if you’re feeling flush/particularly dedicated, get the deluxe edition here
Review written by Aitch Nicol
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although, who did write that Organ review?
Very probably Sean Worrell and/or Marina